Strange Likenesses
by Elizabeth Culmer
Summary: What if the newly disembodied Voldemort had noticed his link to Harry? A dark AU. WIP
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Summary**: What if the newly-disembodied Voldemort had noticed his link to Harry? A dark AU.

**Author's Note**: I began writing this story in 2004, and have since revised it to take information from HBP into account. I make no guarantees of strict canon compliance, though, since I'm working off a slightly different interpretation of Tom Riddle's character from the one I tend to see in other people's work.

Thanks to Lasair and Miss Cora for beta-reading this chapter: all remaining canon goofs, grammar mistakes, continuity errors, implausible characterizations, bad dialogue, boring passages, and Americanisms are my fault, not theirs.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Strange Likenesses: Chapter 1  
**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

It took nearly six months, he later determined, before the dragging, tearing pain diminished to a steady ache and throb of loss and he was able to think again. Tom. His name was Tom.

No, he'd changed it. To... something, he couldn't remember what. Later.

He could still feel himself dying, his life and power seeping slowly from the gaping hole in his spirit. He couldn't seal the hole, but perhaps he could refill himself, seize another week or month. He drifted, immaterial, until a passing rabbit froze within his grasp and he enveloped it, draining its life; then, having no wish to be bound eternally to a rodent's body, he let the corpse fall and drifted away.

Assured that he could once again cheat death, he settled in to recall himself. His name was Tom, he was a disembodied spirit, he had been struck by a curse. _Avada Kedavra_. He had cast the curse on the boy... what?

He tried to blink, and failed. Why had he tried to kill an infant? Not that he felt any particular qualms, but it seemed senseless. What threat could an infant pose to... oh. There had been a prophecy, which, damn it all, seemed to have been fulfilled. Almost. He, Voldemort -- yes, _that_ was his name -- was not quite dead.

Neither, it seemed, was the Potter boy.

In fact, he was certain the boy was alive. Just like he could feel the faint anchors of his Horcruxes, he could feel the brat, itching on the edge of his mind, their magic linked around the raw edges of the hole in his essence. Perhaps if he found the boy, he could heal himself. Or he could simply possess the brat; that might, all things considered, be easier. Then again, perhaps not. He had no desire to live as a mewling toddler and a child's body would do him no good when he regained his position.

Damn it all. He had no time for this. He had spent too many years forced to play somebody else's game, and it was _his_ turn to make the rules.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

It took another month for Tom to travel from southern Germany to Surrey, constrained as he was by the stops to steal more life, the slow pace of ethereal travel, and the maddening tendency of Channel fish to swim toward France while he drained them. He was certain ghosts could move faster than this, but he'd never heard of anyone in his situation before so he had no idea what his limitations should be. He supposed that he should be grateful for any life, even this aching intangibility, but he had given up on shoulds and oughts decades ago, shortly after he killed that whining girl by the Chamber entrance.

The link tightened as he approached the Potter boy, solidifying from a formless itch to a directional tingle, almost a tugging. Unfortunately he couldn't reach the boy. The Muggle house -- and he had never encountered such a stereotypical Muggle house in his life -- was surrounded by ring upon ring of wards, from ultra-complex and finicky modern jumbles down to the plain, solid, and damnably unbreakable blood-bond that sizzled against his magic when he attempted to drift over the property line. That one was Dumbledore's work. Curse the man for not leaving the brat to the Ministry idiots. He could have circumvented all the other barriers, but not that one. No loopholes there, not like Fidelius.

Tom drifted away, discontent. He thought he would normally have been furious at such a thwarting of his will, but his emotions seemed dampened by his ghost-like state. No matter. He could return in a year or so when the boy was old enough to be outdoors. Then he could work on luring the brat away from the wards.

Meanwhile, he had some traitorous Death Eaters to hunt down. All this time, and not one of them had sought him. Not one had believed him strong enough to cheat death. They would pay for that lack of faith.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

It was disconcerting to realize that no wizards could sense him unless he touched their magic in preparation for an overshadowing. Then, of course, they dashed off, flinging hexes behind, before he had a chance to try communicating with them.

After the third time Lucius Malfoy tried to exorcise him, Tom gave it up as a bad job. Obviously he'd have to possess the Potter boy -- he was fairly sure their connected magic would allow him to hold the brat in place long enough to do something more useful than just sip at his life -- at which point he could see about properly punishing his cowardly servants.

Granted, the boy's youth would make his magic weak -- strange curse-reflecting ability notwithstanding -- but Tom's own power should more than make up the difference. He knew he still had magic; the incessant itching of the link between him and Potter proved that.

He drifted back to Surrey, more slowly this time since he had nothing to gain by hurrying. England was a pleasant enough place through which to travel, though given his incorporeality, he couldn't appreciate it as much as he'd prefer, nor could he travel in the style to which he'd been accustomed. He did discover -- inadvertently, when his frustration jarred a rabbit into striking back against a threatening dog -- that he could, in a manner of speaking, ride an animal, only leeching a little of its life at a time and pressing its body into following his orders. It wasn't a true overshadowing, but it served well enough, and Tom hopped from dog to cat to rabbit to snake, from Northumberland down past London with a jaunt through Wales, which he'd always meant to tour after he'd taken power.

Briefly he considered overshadowing a Muggle -- they had no natural defenses against possession and certainly couldn't hex him -- but he gave that idea up in distaste. Firstly, he had no desire to dirty himself with a Muggle mind -- degrading though it was to rely on animals, at least their thoughts couldn't contaminate his. Secondly, a missing Muggle might call unwanted attention to his progress. Thirdly, a Muggle might, unlikely though it seemed, have enough willpower to resist him; it would be the height of disgrace for a Muggle to evict him, a trained Legilimens and semi-immortal wizard, from its body. And lastly, a Muggle body would be useless for moving among wizards.

So Tom continued on his way to Surrey and the Potter boy.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

A year had passed before he reached the house that was the apotheosis of Muggle houses. It disgusted him even more than previously, if such a thing was possible. This time, instead of testing the wards, he settled in to examine the wretched building's inhabitants, prowling around the neighborhood in a succession of pitiful bodies.

The man -- Dursley, he seemed to be called -- was beefy, overbearing, far too stupid to realize his own imbecility, and possessed of an unwarrantedly massive ego. His wife, Petunia, was horse-faced, painfully thin, and incapable of keeping her nose out of her neighbors' business. The only sign that she was related to the Potter boy's mother was an iron determination, which she disguised under a servile, superficial pleasantness to the point where Tom wondered if the woman even realized her own strength of will. It was just as well, he supposed; strong-willed, intelligent Muggles caused far too much trouble for their own good, and would be harder to deal with once he possessed the Potter boy.

The less said of the Dursleys' disgusting blond offspring the better. He was fat, spoiled, insufferable, and a fledgling bully -- the spitting image, weight aside, of boys Tom remembered all too well from his orphanage days, before he'd discovered his magic.

The Potter boy made surprisingly few appearances outside the house, and then only to weed the flowerbeds under the front windows. Tom watched him bend down, wavering on skinny, unsteady toddler legs, and grasp weeds with both hands. Often they resisted hard enough that the boy fell backwards when the roots finally lost their grip on the soil.

At that point, Petunia would generally yell and slap him for smashing her flowers, and her fat pig of a son would laugh and throw dirt at Potter. That made Petunia yell more, blaming her nephew for the dirt now dusting her flowers.

Against his will and better judgment, Tom felt a sneaking thread of pity for the tiny, black-haired boy. But the prophecy was clear and he needed Potter's body. He had no reason to alter his plans.

Still, he would take great satisfaction in torturing these particular Muggles once he had possession of his new body.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

His chance finally arrived one autumn afternoon, when Petunia carelessly left Potter unattended in the garden and the boy backed over the property line to reach the far side of his aunt's flowerbeds. Tom was riding a garter snake that day -- he'd found them particularly easy to manipulate, probably because of his gift for Parseltongue -- and he slithered through the grass until he was within two feet of Potter, ready to dart forward and make contact.

The boy noticed him. Tom froze, hoping the brat suffered from the common fear of snakes, but Potter simply eyed him curiously.

"Hello," he said softly. "You should go. Aunt Petunia doesn't like animals in the garden, and then she yells and throws things."

It took several seconds for Tom to realize that not only did _he_ understand the boy, but _so did the snake_.

Potter was a Parselmouth.

Just like he was.

The boy seemed upset by the snake's failure to move and reached over to pick it up. The snake-body screamed with conflicting instincts -- flee from the human, let the master touch it, obey the master and leave, approach the master and taste his skin -- but Tom forced them all down until Potter's hands closed around scales.

Quickly, using every ounce of speed he'd learned to wring from his ghostly form, he slipped from the terrified snake into the boy's hands, spreading through his body, touching his blood and the threads of magic pulsing through his veins, laying claim to this new home.

Potter stiffened in shock, dropping the snake and falling sideways to the ground. "No!" he whimpered. "Get out!" His hands rose involuntarily, scratching at the wraith-like tendrils of magic and control Tom was extending through his body. "Get out get out get out!"

As the boy's scrabbling fingers drew blood, his magic gathered and lashed back along the link, piercing into the heart of Tom's ghostly essence with all the fear and anger and disgust Potter felt at this strange _thing_ invading his body.

"Stop fighting me!" The words burst from the boy's lips, and Tom realized in shock that _he_ had been the one to think them, the one who had worked the lungs and teeth and lips to produce those sounds. He had come too far, spent too long, to lose this battle after already gaining that much control. He would not be defeated again by this idiot boy, this boy whose body looked so much like Tom's before the creation of his Horcruxes bent it out of shape forever, and whose magic was so similar to his own.

Tom wrapped himself around his magic and forced himself through the jagged gap in his being, inverting himself through the link into Potter's magic and life and soul. _The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches_ -- well, they'd see about that. When this was done, he would be the one to stand and walk away, not some pitiful _child_.

Potter screamed as the torrent of Tom's life and magic poured into his mind, and then, reaching out in desperation, the boy slammed the link shut. The blunt edge of his magic smashed through Tom's outstretched mental fingers like stones through an intricate spider web, leaving his body twitching spasmodically as the vestiges of Tom's control thinned and broke.

Tom would have gaped if he'd had a mouth to use. He hadn't thought the link _could_ close. It was always there, itching at the back of his mind, and now this three-year-old child had done something he'd never considered.

He scrabbled around, trying to determine his position. The link was shut -- he had no access to Potter's mind or magic anymore -- but he'd been pulled through it, pulled it inside out and dragged his escape hatch in after himself. He had no way to flee.

Tom was trapped inside the boy -- instead of possessing Potter, Potter had possessed _him_. And now the boy's mind was pressing inexorably around him, squeezing him smaller and smaller and shoving him down into the depths of the subconscious, held in place by a web of uncontrolled magic.

There must have been more to that prophecy than Snape had known, Tom thought as darkness began to swallow him, and when he finally got out of this mess -- no matter how long it took -- he was going to string the greasy bastard up by his thumbnails and hold him under Cruciatus until he figured out what had gone wrong.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I appreciate all comments, but I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer**: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Summary**: What if the newly-disembodied Voldemort had noticed his link to Harry? A dark AU.

**Author's Note**: I began writing this story in 2004, and have since revised it to take information from HBP into account. I make no guarantees of strict canon compliance, though, since I'm working off a slightly different interpretation of Tom Riddle's character from the one I tend to see in other people's work.

Thanks to Lasair and Miss Cora, my betas, who prodded me into making the third scene less abrupt. Any remaining canon goofs, grammar mistakes, continuity errors, implausible characterizations, bad dialogue, boring passages, and Americanisms are my fault, not theirs.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Strange Likenesses: Chapter 2  
**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Harry Potter, of number four, Privet Drive, grew up knowing that something was wrong with him. His family told him that often enough, and even when he was old enough to stop paying much attention to their opinions, the way odd things happened around him when he was upset was harder to dismiss. The tingle in his scar and the back of his mind also bothered him, but his teachers said he couldn't really feel his brain itch and his cousin Dudley only laughed at him, so Harry mostly stopped worrying about that.

He tried very hard to be normal and not to upset his aunt and uncle. He hated missing meals, hated being locked in his cupboard, and hated the way the tingle prickled like thorns and made his eyes water when he was absolutely furious at the world. But he couldn't help being different. And when the strange letters began arriving just before his eleventh birthday, part of him wasn't surprised at all.

Still, Harry had no idea what the letters actually _said_, and he had no way to resist Uncle Vernon when he dragged the family off on a mad quest to escape the mysterious letters, ending in a miserable hut on a rock in the ocean, in the middle of a storm.

Somehow, though, the letters would get through. Harry was oddly certain of that.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

He felt, later, that he ought to have realized. He'd had all the clues.

_"See, there was this wizard who went... bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was..."_

_"Voldemort," whispered Harry. "His name was Voldemort."_

_"Don' say that!" Hagrid shuddered. "How'd yeh know that, Harry? Yeh didn' know yer a wizard, but yeh know about You-Know-Who?"_

_"I must have heard someone say it," Harry said hastily. "I think I used to see wizards sometimes -- funny people in robes and hats? -- and one of them must have mentioned it."_

_"Righ'. Anyway, this-- this wizard, about twenty years ago..."_

There was the incident at Ollivanders.

_Harry took the wand, feeling a sudden warmth in his fingers. He raised it above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air, and streams of sparks -- green and silver, red and gold -- shot from the end like fireworks, throwing dancing spots of light onto the walls. Hagrid whooped and clapped._

_Mr. Ollivander, however, fixed his pale, shimmering eyes onto Harry. "Curious," he said. "How very curious."_

_Harry handed over his new wand to be packaged. "Sorry, but _what's_ curious?"_

_"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter," said Mr. Ollivander. "Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand gave one other feather. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother -- why, its brother gave you that scar._

_"Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember... I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter. After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things -- terrible, yes, but great."_

There was the Sorting Hat.

_"Hmm," said a small voice in his ear. "Interesting, very interesting. Plenty of courage, I see, and loyalty to your friends. Not a bad mind, either. There's talent, oh my goodness, yes -- and a nice thirst to prove yourself. And something underneath, something hidden... I wonder what secrets you're guarding, Mr. Potter?_

_"I think I should put you in--"_

_"Not Slytherin, not Slytherin," Harry thought fiercely._

_"Really? Are you sure? You could be great, you know -- it's all here in your head -- and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that. And that house deals best with hidden depths... no? Well, if you're that determined, better be GRYFFINDOR!"_

And the Mirror of Erised.

_"One can never have enough socks," said Dumbledore as he and Harry walked away from the mirror. "Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books."_

_As he turned to close the door, Harry stole a last look at the mirror, wanting one final glimpse of his family. They smiled and waved sadly, wishing him well -- but a strange green light shone around them and a misty figure seemed to stand beside Harry's reflection, their hands intertwined -- as if he had a shadowy twin._

_"Harry?" Dumbledore asked gently._

_"Sorry, sir." Harry shut the door and tried to put the reflection out of his mind._

Those clues, and his old dreams of the snake and the vampire ghost, should have told him, Harry felt. His dreams of green light and flying motorcycles had been true. The snake dreams felt _real_ in the same way.

He should have realized. He should have known.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Harry drank the potion in one swallow, feeling as though liquid ice were flooding his body, and walked forward. The black flames licked his body but he couldn't feel them. For a moment he saw nothing but dark fire -- then he was on the other side, in the last chamber.

There was already someone there. But it wasn't Snape. It wasn't even any of the dark wizards Hermione had looked up.

It was Quirrell.

He stood before the Mirror of Erised, hair disheveled, clothes smudged, and eyes glazed as he ran his fingers over the glass. "Find the Stone -- the Stone is in the Mirror -- find the Stone -- the Stone is in the Mirror..." His voice was even more slurred than it had been all year.

Harry gasped.

Quirrell spun around, surprise jolting his face out of slackness. "Potter! How did you get in here?" Then he shook his head abruptly and his eyes glazed again. "That's not important. The Stone is in the Mirror. I must find the Stone, but I can't use the Mirror. You -- face the Mirror and find the Stone."

"No!" Harry backed away, mind working frantically. It must have been Quirrell all along -- Hermione had said that she'd accidentally knocked Quirrell over when she set fire to Snape at the Quidditch match -- he must have been the one hexing Harry's broom. Quirrell was the Dark Arts professor -- he must have let the troll in at Halloween.

But why did he look like he was half-asleep? He'd been tired and distracted all year long, but now he almost seemed to be sleepwalking.

Quirrell snapped his fingers and ropes sprang out of thin air to surround Harry, binding his arms to his sides. "Come here, Potter. Look in the Mirror. Find the Stone." He grabbed Harry's shoulders and hauled him in front of the Mirror. "Find the Stone. Tell me how to find the Stone."

He had to lie, Harry decided. He didn't know what he wanted most right now -- to find the Stone and get it away from Quirrell, to be somewhere else, to have Dumbledore appear and rescue him -- but if he saw anything useful he had to lie. He couldn't let Quirrell get the Philosopher's Stone.

Quirrell shoved Harry forward, nearly sending him crashing into the glass. He stared blankly into the Mirror of Erised. Help me, he thought. Work for me. Give me the Stone and I'll smash it to pieces so Quirrell can't use it. That's what I want more than anything else in the world. He pushed aside the constant tingle in his mind and focused his will on that thought.

For a moment his reflection held a blood-red stone and smiled at Harry, starting to slip it into his reflected pocket, but then the tingle rose up the way it sometimes did when he was working magic, and the image split. One Harry frowned and let the stone vanish from its hand, while the other held the stone to its scar, releasing a formless ghost from its head. The ghost plunged into a sparkling potion and a man rose from the cauldron, laughing.

Harry stumbled back, head spinning. Where was the Stone? What did the second reflection mean?

"What did you see? _What did you see?_"

"Nothing," Harry choked out through suddenly numb lips. He felt disconnected from his body; the tingle scratched and prickled against the inside of his head, pressing for release.

"You're lying. You have to be lying. Find me the Stone!" Quirrell lunged forward, fingers clawing for Harry's face, and a strange spark of light, red and green intertwined, leapt from his scar to wreath around Quirrell's fingers. Quirrell howled, clutching his burned hand to his chest, and then all of a sudden slumped forward, panting.

"Oh God, Merlin, Founders, help me," he muttered. "What have I done?"

Harry blinked. Quirrell wasn't slurring his words.

When the Dark Arts teacher looked up again his eyes were clear and sharp, though nervous, and the strange slackness was gone from his face. "Potter, step away from the mirror and we'll wait for Dumbledore to come. Our presence here has triggered alarms that will call him back from London."

"You tried to kill me! And you were stealing the Philosopher's Stone."

"Yes, and I'm sorry about that, but I wasn't in control of my own actions," said Quirrell. "Over the summer, someone kidnapped me and put me under the Imperius Curse -- it's one of the Unforgivables, a spell that takes away your free will and forces you to obey the caster's orders. Somebody wanted the Stone and needed a person inside Hogwarts to steal it." He snapped his fingers again, making the ropes vanish.

Harry glared, trying to ignore his increasing lightheadedness. "I don't believe you. You tried to kill me. And aren't you supposed to be the Defense professor?" Why was he listening to Quirrell? He should run or try to take Quirrell's wand. Harry pressed a hand to his head, wishing the tingle would stop and let him think.

"Believe what you like, Potter, but very few people can resist Imperius and my specialty is Dark creatures, not curses. In any case I think I remember who did this to me, and Dumbledore will sort everything out." Quirrell's voice was getting fainter. In fact, everything was getting fainter, fuzzing out like a television with static, and the tingling pressure was sweeping over his body like a wave. Dimly, he saw a red-robed figure rush through the flames -- Dumbledore was here!

"Professor -- the Stone --"

He couldn't feel his body. Rushing water filled his ears.

"Quirrell, Harry, what happened here? Is the Stone -- my goodness, Harry, are you all right? Harry? Harry!"

Harry fell into blackness.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I appreciate all comments, but I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer**: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Summary**: What if the newly-disembodied Voldemort had noticed his link to Harry? A dark AU.

**Author's Note**: I began writing this story in 2004 and have since revised it to take information from HBP into account. I make no guarantees of strict canon compliance, though, since I'm working off a slightly different interpretation of Tom Riddle's character from the one I tend to see in other people's work.

Thanks to Lasair for beta-reading this chapter. Any remaining canon goofs, grammar mistakes, continuity errors, implausible characterizations, bad dialogue, boring passages, and Americanisms are my fault, not hers.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Strange Likenesses: Chapter 3  
**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

He woke up.

At first he didn't noticed the strangeness, too weighted down with sleep and aches and a dull, burning pain in his forehead. Then he realized that he had _woken up_. That meant he had been asleep. He was conscious. He had a body -- weak and sore, but resilient with youth. He had magic -- he could feel power tingling in the remnants of his soul. He was _alive_.

Tom almost laughed, before he remembered that his body was gone. The only body he could inhabit rather than overshadow was Potter's, and, judging from the jumbled memories of those last minutes in front of the Mirror, Potter had nothing to laugh about at the moment. He was in no shape to fight; his safety lay in people's ignorance of his existence. He wore Potter's body. He would pretend to be Potter.

Cautiously, he opened his eyes.

Something gold glinted above him. He blinked, clearing the blur of sleep, and the glint resolved into Dumbledore's glasses.

"Good afternoon," the old man said.

Tom stared, his mind racing frantically. He wanted to kill Dumbledore -- there was nothing he could imagine wanting more -- and nothing further from his grasp. If he revealed himself... no. Later, when circumstances were in his favor. He was in Potter's body. Dumbledore thought he was Potter. What would Potter say?

"The Stone!" he tried. "Quirrell was trying to get the Stone! What happened?"

"Calm yourself; the Stone is safe, and both your friends and Professor Quirrell are fine," said Dumbledore.

As if he cared about Potter's friends -- that insufferable girl and the red-headed fool could die for all he cared. They had nothing to do with... wait. He had never met Potter's friends. How did he know their appearances and personalities? Tom looked around, trying to disguise his confusion as simple disorientation. Vertigo washed over him as he turned his head.

He seemed to be in the hospital wing, lying in a bed with white linen sheets; the bedside table was piled with what looked like half the contents of the Hogsmeade sweetshop.

"Tokens from friends and admirers," said Dumbledore, noting his change of attention. "What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally, the whole school knows."

Typical, thought Tom, after his headache subsided a fraction. Wizards were hopelessly impractical about certain things. They had never known life without magic; it made them soft.

"I believe your friends Misters Fred and George Weasley were responsible for trying to send you a toilet seat," continued Dumbledore. "No doubt they thought it would amuse you. Madam Pomfrey, however, felt it might not be very hygienic, and confiscated it."

"A toilet seat," repeated Tom. That did sound like the Weasley twins... and again, he should not have known that. He fought back a surge of dizziness. "How long have I been in here? And what happened to Quirrell and the Stone? Saying that everyone is fine doesn't explain anything."

"You have been in here three days," said Dumbledore. "Mr. Ronald Weasley and Miss Granger will be most relieved you have come round; they have been extremely worried."

Three days? He supposed his awakening -- his desperate, instinctive strike at the weakening walls of his prison -- might well have caused significant shock to Potter's body, mind, and magic, and the peculiar reaction of Potter's curse scar to Quirrell's touch was doubtless another factor. "I'm sorry they've been worried," said Tom, putting a note of concern in his voice. "But sir, the Stone...?" He didn't have to fake a slight waver; pain took care of that for him.

The old man sighed. "I see you are not to be distracted. Very well, the Stone. Neither you nor Professor Quirrell managed to remove it from the mirror, and touching you seems to have ripped apart the Imperius Curse controlling his mind. He tells me he was waiting for the alarm spells to call me back from London, so that I could find a more secure hiding place -- which I have not done. Instead, I destroyed the Stone."

"Destroyed?" said Tom, blankly. "But--"

"To you, I'm sure it seems incredible, but rest assured my actions were for the best. You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all -- the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for us."

Tom lay there, lost for words. That insufferable old _bastard!_ He still presumed to lecture him, lecture _Lord Voldemort_, after all his achievements, after his conquest of death, after his... oh. Of course. Dumbledore thought he was talking to Potter.

Or did he? Dumbledore hadn't once used Potter's name, Tom suddenly realized. How much did the old man know?

"Sir? I've been thinking... if somebody was controlling Professor Quirrell, why did they want the Stone? Did it have anything to do with that cloaked man Malfoy and I saw in the Forest? The man who killed the unicorn? Do you think it might have been He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?"

Tom decided not to think too hard about how he knew details of Potter's recent life. The information was useful; he would use it. Besides, trying to track the source of those memories made his headache throb in protest.

"Call him Voldemort," said Dumbledore. "Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself."

True. He had always appreciated that effect. "Yes, sir. But, if it was him, or his followers, he's going to try other ways of coming back, right? He hasn't gone, has he?"

"No, he has not. He is still out there somewhere. He did not die on that Halloween night, but he is no longer truly alive, and so he cannot be killed, cannot die. Nevertheless, he may never recover. It will merely take one person who is prepared to resist him, to fight what seems a losing battle -- and if he is delayed, and delayed again, why, he may never return to power. Those who wish to succeed him, to replace him, face the same hurdles. Evil is endlessly hungry, but it can always be resisted in this fashion -- one battle at a time, until it devours itself."

Something stirred at the back of Tom's mind, nearly seismic in intensity. He winced, pressing one hand to his forehead. Potter's scar burned against his palm.

"Sir," he said quickly, dancing over the surface of his hatred, "there are some other things I'd like to know the truth about, if you're willing to tell me."

"The truth." Dumbledore sighed. "It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution. However, I shall answer your questions unless I have a very good reason not to, in which case I beg you'll forgive me. I shall not, of course, lie."

The old man meant that, astonishingly enough; moral qualms were such peculiar things. "Well," said Tom, "people call me the Boy Who Lived because Voldemort couldn't kill me. But I didn't do anything. Why didn't his curse work? Why did _I_ live when nobody else ever did?"

"Alas, the first thing you ask me, I cannot tell you. I do not know the answer. I have suspicions -- I may even have theories -- but only Voldemort and Lily Potter know the true answer to that question."

But he didn't know! If he'd known, he wouldn't have died. "Lily Potter? My mother?" He felt as if his voice were doubled and echoing within his head, pounding like a drum.

"Yes. You see, she died to save you, and a love that powerful leaves its own mark. Not a scar, not a visible sign, but to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved you is gone, will give you some protection forever. It is in your very skin. That, I believe, is why Quirrell was able to break through Imperius once he touched you. The person who cast the curse on him was full of hatred, greed, and ambition -- such impulses could not maintain their strength in contact with profound love."

His cheeks were unaccountably damp. Tom touched them, and realized his body was crying. Dumbledore became very interested in a bird out on the windowsill, allowing him a moment to brush aside the baffling evidence of weakness.

"My mother died to save me," he said, once again hearing that curious, throbbing echo. "But... but why would that stop a curse? Lots of people must have died trying to save their families and friends." Dozens. Hundreds. Always crying and pleading and throwing themselves in the way of his curses, to no avail. All they had managed was to increase their loved ones' suffering in the brief space before death. It had been amusing, in a pathetic fashion. "Why didn't love protect them?" His head ached, and his breath hitched.

"Here, I am afraid, we are venturing into the realm of things I cannot tell you," said Dumbledore. "One day, when you are ready, you will know." His voice rang with finality, and Tom gave up on pursuing the matter for the moment.

Besides, his head was pounding; he didn't want to fence with Dumbledore while he couldn't think clearly. "Sorry, sir," he managed. He closed his eyes, hoping darkness would help soothe the pain.

"Are you feeling all right?" said Dumbledore. "I seem to have tired you out while you were still in pain -- I apologize for that."

"I asked. I wanted to know," said Tom.

"Yes, you did," agreed Dumbledore. "Still, as your elder and your teacher, I am responsible for you, and I should have taken more care. I suggest you rest now, and perhaps make a start on these sweets in order to, as Muggles say, raise your blood sugar." He poked around in the pile of gifts; Tom heard boxes rattle and shift. It seemed odd to him that people would send him gifts -- he hadn't realized people actually _liked_ him instead of seeing him as a symbol or a storybook hero. Something intangible shifted again, and he bit down on a groan.

"Ah!" said Dumbledore, accompanied by the crinkling of plastic. "Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean! I was unfortunate enough in my youth to come across a vomit-flavored one, and since then I'm afraid I've rather lost my liking for them -- but I think I'll be safe enough with a nice toffee, don't you?"

Tom considered what other flavors might be toffee-colored. Wheat toast. Muddy sand or sandy mud. Cooking oil. Depending on the shade of toffee, dog shit.

Dumbledore choked. "Alas! Ear wax!"

Tom's mouth curled up into a smile, and his body laughed, sympathetically. "It could have been worse, sir."

He wasn't laughing. He hadn't spoken.

Tom sat bolt upright, both hands pressed against Potter's scar. Pain ripped through his head, echoed back, doubled and redoubled between his mind and a foreign consciousness -- Potter's mind, awake at last! -- and he screamed.

"Resist him, Harry! This is your body -- throw him out!" shouted Dumbledore, but his voice came from the bottom of a well, from the other side of the world; it had no meaning, no sense. There was nothing but pain and fear and two minds, two lifetimes of memories, trying to fit around each other in a space meant only for one. "Tom, let go of him! You do not belong in this world anymore!"

They were still screaming, still scrabbling for control, fighting the slide into that crushing abyss where Tom had spent nearly eight years, when the nurse rushed in and stunned them.

"I'm sorry, sir," Potter whispered, as darkness swallowed them both.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I appreciate all comments, but I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_.

Edited 1/12/08, to remove Tom's awareness of his Horcruxes. If he can't tell, in canon, whether they're destroyed or not, then he shouldn't be able to feel them here.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer**: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Summary**: What if the newly-disembodied Voldemort had noticed his link to Harry? A dark AU.

**Author's Note**: I began writing this story in 2004 and have since revised it to take information from HBP into account. I make no guarantees of strict canon compliance, though, since I'm working off a slightly different interpretation of Tom Riddle's character from the one I tend to see in other people's work.

Thanks to Lasair for beta-reading this chapter. Any remaining canon goofs, grammar mistakes, continuity errors, implausible characterizations, bad dialogue, boring passages, and Americanisms are my fault, not hers.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Strange Likenesses: Chapter 4  
**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"He's in my head, isn't he," said Harry.

It wasn't a question; he could feel someone else's thoughts and memories settling into his brain, shifting and stretching until he had decades of Voldemort's life and ideas wrapped around his own not-quite-twelve years. Voldemort himself seemed to be asleep or hiding, but Harry _knew_ he was there.

"I'm afraid so, Harry," said Dumbledore, looking grave. "I'm baffled as to how he got in there in the first place. Unfortunately, the only methods I can think of to reverse this overshadowing involve your death, or the erasure of your memories and personality along with his. He will have to leave voluntarily or not at all."

"I know how he got in," said Harry, feeling remarkably calm. He thought he ought to be angry or upset, but he couldn't seem to make himself care. It was much easier to simply lie flat in his bed and stare at spidery cracks in the ceiling. "When I was three, I had a nightmare about a vampire ghost. I picked up a snake and the ghost poured into me and tried to eat me from inside out." Phantom pain burned up his arms like venom and joined the dull ache in his mind. Harry turned his head and focused on Dumbledore's flowered purple robes until the memory receded. "I imagined that I threw it into my cupboard and locked the door like the Dursleys did to me when I was bad."

In the corner of his eye, he saw Madam Pomfrey's hand twitch as though she wanted to draw her wand.

"I suppose it wasn't a nightmare after all," concluded Harry. "I was trying so hard to find the Stone and stop Quirrell that I forgot to keep the door locked. Now I don't know how to push him back inside."

"It is to your great credit that you were able to overcome him at all," said Dumbledore earnestly. "Many stronger and more experienced wizards would have died or lost their sanity entirely. You have survived _twice_, and this time, you are not alone -- all the professors are working on plans to help you resist your unwanted guest." Then he looked down at his hands, and his aura of confidence ebbed. "Rest assured, we will make certain that even if your control falters, Voldemort will not have any opportunity to harm those you care about."

"...You're locking me up in here," translated Harry. "It's okay, sir. I understand. Can you tell Ron and Hermione that it's not their fault, and I don't want to get them in any more trouble, so they shouldn't try to see me?"

"I'm truly sorry, Harry," said Dumbledore, still not meeting Harry's eyes. "I will pass your message along."

"I'd like to go back to sleep now," said Harry, pulling the sheet up over his face. Dumbledore sighed, but both Harry heard him and Madam Pomfrey leave the room.

Alone, except in his own head, Harry pressed his hands to his eyes. He thought about flying, and Ron, and Hermione, and Hagrid -- the few good things that had ever happened in his life -- and wondered why he'd ever believed magic wouldn't have a price.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"How did you know it was him and not me?" Harry asked the next day when Dumbledore came by at lunchtime, carrying a bowl of soup. "I didn't even know it wasn't me talking until I did say something, and _he_ realized we were both awake."

Dumbledore sat down beside Harry's bed, tucking the ends of his robe about his ankles. "Ah. If I had had only his words to rely on, I might not have realized his existence until too late -- Voldemort has always been skilled at telling people what they want to hear. Fortunately, Harry, when he opened your eyes, they weren't green. They were red, the color his own eyes had become before his... discorporation. It was quite disconcerting to see that color in your face."

Harry wondered how a person went about getting red eyes. It seemed a pointless thing to do, especially if it made you more recognizable.

_It was a side-effect of another spell. I admit that the effect on people could be irritating -- there are times when fear and awe are counterproductive -- but I consider it a small cost for what I gained._ The sibilant voice drifted up from the bottom of Harry's mind like smoke, warm and slightly gritty against his own thoughts.

_Go away_, Harry thought back, imagining a brick wall across his mind.

Laughter echoed faintly from behind the barrier. _Where there are walls, there are doors. But talk to the old man; I'm curious about what he knows, and how much he'll be willing to tell you. Questions must twist in his mind -- how deeply you and I are bound, how much of our knowledge is shared, how much your personality affects mine... and vice versa._

Harry reinforced the wall and turned his attention to his soup. He didn't feel like eating -- the thin broth reminded him of orphanage food, especially during wartime rationing -- but he forced down a few spoonfuls while Dumbledore watched.

"Is he troubling you, Harry?" the Headmaster asked after several minutes of silence.

"No," said Harry. There was no point in complaining; nobody could do anything to help. He changed the subject instead. "Sir, you said he's good at fooling people. But you fooled him for a while -- you pretended that you thought you were talking to me. Why did you do that?"

Behind the wall, Voldemort listened intently.

Dumbledore looked grave. "There are times when we are forced into actions we would normally condemn -- lies, even of omission, can sometimes be necessary in order to obtain information. I needed to know Voldemort's intentions, and I hoped to draw him into revealing himself more directly."

_Lies,_ Voldemort told Harry. _He wasn't trying to draw me out; he was _lecturing_ me. And consider his words carefully before you trust him. How far do you suppose he'll go in order to kill me? How much do you think your life is worth to him?_

_My life isn't worth anything_, said Harry, _so I don't care._

"He's listening to us," he said out loud. "He says you might kill me in order to get rid of him. If I can't lock him up again, you'll have to keep me locked up for the rest of my life. It would be easier to kill me now."

"No, Harry!" said Dumbledore, leaning over to press his hand against Harry's shoulder. "We will find another way. We _must_ find another way. You are not a weapon or a tool -- you are a human being, and I refuse to let you throw yourself away."

Harry set the half-full bowl of soup on his bedside table and lay down without answering.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Harry stared blankly at the ceiling, trying not to think. Moonlight floated in through the window, casting a faint silver glow over the darkened room. He had always liked moonlit nights; he used to sneak out of his bed and climb onto the roof, away from all the stupid, petty, self-centered brats who-- He shook his head, once, dislodging the memory. Moonlight never reached his cupboard door, and the Dursleys had always locked him in at night.

"Why won't you leave?" Harry asked out loud. "Everyone knows you're here, so it's not as if my body is any use to you."

"Why do _you_ think I'm staying?" his voice countered, the intonations subtly different. Voldemort, demonstrating his control of Harry's body -- Harry hadn't even felt the transfer until his mouth began to move without his own volition.

"I don't know," said Harry, in the tone he reserved for mocking Dudley. "That's why I asked." This time he felt Voldemort reach for his lungs and throat and mouth. Harry slammed him away. The man's memories felt too familiar, too much like his own, but at least their souls were still distinct. He needed that clarity, that line between them.

_There are several potential answers,_ said Voldemort, a tinge of amusement in his mental voice. _First, I might simply be gathering my strength and waiting for Dumbledore's vigilance to slip, at which point I might take control of your body and escape. Second, I might be trying to corrupt you from within. Third, I might be unable to leave. Fourth, I might already have left; I am a powerful Legilimens, as you remember, and our link is strong enough for me to insert any number of thoughts and false memories into your mind._

Harry discounted the last theory immediately. The others, though... "I won't kill people or start hating Muggles, no matter what I remember, so forget about that. You don't feel weak, so forget about that too. What could stop you from leaving?"

_You, of course_, said Voldemort.

He retreated behind a wall of sharp-edged memories before Harry could respond.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"The Killing Curse is supposed to be impossible to block or survive," Harry said to Dumbledore the next afternoon. "You can't tell me why I lived, but do you know why Voldemort didn't die all the way?"

Voldemort frowned in the back of Harry's mind. _Why ask him? You already know the answer, if you bother to look_.

_I don't trust you_, Harry said.

_That's probably wise. I don't trust you either_.

A lack of trust implied that Voldemort considered him an equal, somehow able to harm him if he let down his guard. For the first time in three days, Harry felt like smiling.

Dumbledore had been studying him, stroking his beard in deep thought. He'd always had that habit, even when his hair was ginger instead of white. "I suppose there's no harm in telling you something that Voldemort already knows," he said eventually. "I hate to reveal such dark magic to you -- you're far too young to be exposed to the depths of human evil -- but given your situation, I doubt this knowledge can increase your burden."

_Self-righteous pedant_, thought Voldemort. _Get on with it_.

Harry caught himself before he agreed with the man who'd killed his parents.

"There is an evil spell that creates a type of immortality. It's flawed, the same way drinking unicorn blood is a flawed path, but some wizards consider it worth the price." Dumbledore shook his head sadly. "If a person kills another human being, that creates a fracture in his soul; magic can use that fracture to split off a soul fragment and capture the fragment in an object. Because the soul remains fundamentally linked, then so long as that object remains whole -- even if the person's body dies -- the soul fragment anchors its owner to this world.

"Such a fragment is called a Horcrux. I believe Voldemort used this spell -- I do not know how many times -- and his Horcruxes keep him trapped on earth in a sort of half-life."

_Half right_, said Voldemort. _I'm also linked to you. My Horcruxes kept me from dissolution, but it was _you_ who kept my mind intact. In a way, you're responsible for our current situation._

Harry had stopped listening. He was linked to Voldemort, and Voldemort was linked to the rest of his soul. Harry closed his eyes and tested the tangled knot where his magic and life intersected with Voldemort's soul, and then compared the resonance to the five faint threads that seemed to spin off into the distance like an intangible spider web.

"Sir?" he said. Dumbledore looked down with an inquiring expression. "The Horcruxes are linked to his soul? I think--"

His throat tightened, his lips pressed shut. He couldn't breathe.

_Be silent. This imprisonment will not last forever -- all mortals die -- and I will not conspire in my own destruction!_

Harry dropped his imaginary wall -- he didn't have the focus to hold two fronts at once -- and dredged through a swamp of memories for moments of pain and doubt, for self-hatred, confusion, anger, loneliness, and all the jagged-edged nightmares two lifetimes could collect. He hurled the storm at Voldemort, not caring what damage he might do to his mind, and seized control of his voice.

"Sir, the Horcruxes -- _I can find them_."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I appreciate all comments, but I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_.

(Minor edit 5/21/08 to correct the number of Horcruxes. Voldemort didn't make Nagini into a Horcrux until after he got his body back, so in "Strange Likenesses" he only has six: the diary, the ring, the tiara, the locket, the goblet, and Harry. Therefore, Harry should only feel five threads. -sigh- Apparently I'm as bad with numbers as JKR.)


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer**: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Summary**: What if the newly-disembodied Voldemort had noticed his link to Harry? A dark AU.

**Author's Note**: I began writing this story in 2004 and have since revised it to take information from HBP and DH into account. I make no guarantees of strict canon compliance, though, since I'm working off a slightly different interpretation of Tom Riddle's character from the one I tend to see in other people's work.

Thanks to Lasair for beta-reading this chapter. Any remaining canon goofs, grammar mistakes, continuity errors, implausible characterizations, bad dialogue, boring passages, and Americanisms are my fault, not hers.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Strange Likenesses: Chapter 5  
**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

He picked his way through shattered coils of memory, searching for Potter. Dream-walking was an inexact art at the best of times. When both minds in question occupied the same brain, and when one had willfully smashed through the barriers separating them, the visualizations became... odd.

Tom glanced down at the replica of his eleven-year-old body -- nearly as small and weak as Potter's, though at least wearing school robes over his drab Muggle clothing -- and grimaced in distaste. He supposed this was Potter's subconscious attempt to bring him down to the boy's own level, or to make clear that he was an interloper in this body, but theoretical understanding did nothing to reconcile him to his situation.

"It's a pity someone stole the watch from its original home," he mused, sending the illusion of his voice outward through the dreamscape. "I would have enjoyed watching Dumbledore drink the protection spell, or torture himself with guilt for sending someone else to face that ordeal."

"He would have sent Snape," said Potter. The boy's voice echoed off the ruins, giving no accurate trace of his hiding spot.

Tom hissed under his breath. Yes, Snape, the traitor, might well have been able to circumvent the mind-trap potion. Snape had the soul and inclinations of a poisoner, but he could brew antidotes with equal facility, if not equal interest.

"In any case, you've managed to destroy three of my anchors in less than two months. Congratulations; only you, the ring, and the diary still hold me on this side of the veil." He stirred a glassy pile of thoughts with his shoe, letting the memory of Dudley Dursley's eleventh birthday wash over him. The shards swirled into mist and coalesced into a lumpy spire. It was webbed with cracks, and it connected oddly to nearby spires -- to memories of his own childhood -- but it was solid.

"If you want me to leave, why not use the diary? It has the power to hold a personality and a lifetime of memories, and it's already linked to us. You might be able to separate me without increasing the damage to your mind." Tom picked up another shard of thought -- the taste of fried eggs and the smell of bacon on a hot summer morning -- and joined it to the castle he was building.

"I know how that diary works. I won't give you a new body," said Potter, leaping down from a promontory of unbroken memories and glaring across the rubble.

"You could destroy the diary before I had a chance to reorient myself," Tom said. A burst of seething anger and five strokes with a ruler across the palm of his hand joined to a fleeting glimpse of Dudley's new easel and paint set lying broken in the middle of the fat idiot's spare bedroom.

"You'd know if I planned to do that, and then you wouldn't leave. Stop trying to twist me around," snapped Potter, shoving back the sleeves of his oversized shirt. "And stop touching my memories!"

Tom smiled. "If you can tell mine from yours without picking them up, please, show me the trick. I find it particularly fascinating that even after I touch them, I'm still often not sure which hours of loneliness, which injuries, which nights of hunger, and which flashes of rage belong to you or to me. In some ways, we're a lot alike."

Potter leaned down and smashed the memory castle Tom had built. Thoughts slashed his hands, leaving echo wounds on Tom's own fingers, but Potter didn't seem to care. He drew a breath, held it while he visibly counted to ten. "I am not like you."

Tom held up his bleeding hands and shrugged. "Oh, I admit that we have a fundamental disconnect in our thinking. You assume that shoulds and oughts govern the world, while I know that only desire -- and the strength and will to achieve that desire -- is real. That's how your mother saved you, you know. She wanted you to live, and she wanted that badly enough to use her life and soul as the fuel for a protection spell. I wanted power and immortality -- you know what I paid for those desires. You want to destroy me... but not quite enough to pay the price."

Potter had gone very still, his green eyes glittering as bright and sharp as the memory shards at his feet. "Are you done?"

"Done with what?"

Tom had hoped to make Potter lose his temper -- maybe to shake his resolve, maybe just for entertainment -- but Potter apparently took that as whatever affirmation he'd been looking for, and stalked off, his ratty trainers flapping with each step.

After a minute, Tom picked up another shard of memory -- "We'd hoped for a more cheerful boy, maybe blond rather than dark," a woman's voice said as yet another set of potential parents found him wanting -- and began piecing together a new castle.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The Thestral-drawn carriage rumbled along the country lane, between hedges thick with summer foliage. Birds called back and forth in the young woodlands to the left, and scattered butterflies danced in meadows to the right, but no sign of human habitation broke the green stillness.

"The last I remember, there were Muggle farms all along this road, not wilderness. What _has_ Lucius been up to?" Tom murmured, borrowing Potter's voice for a moment.

"I believe the Muggle term is 'money laundering,'" Dumbledore said as their carriage approached the Malfoys' ancestral home. "A number of your followers died without formal wills, or left everything to your cause -- Lucius was one of the few people still alive and free to deal with their estates. He has made something of a name for himself as a benefactor and an influential donor to political causes. This seems to require him to host lavish dinner parties, one of which I was somehow talked into attending. I, of course, found myself rather lost in such a large house, and I believe I recall stumbling across several likely hiding places for Dark artifacts." The old man's eyes twinkled above his broad smile.

"That isn't exactly playing by the rules," Tom observed.

"Nonsense! I stayed entirely within the bounds of decent behavior, which is more than I can truthfully say of some of my erstwhile dinner companions," Dumbledore said, with a meaningfully raised finger.

Tom smiled, rolling Potter's wand between his fingers. "I admit that I didn't recruit wizards for their mastery of dinner etiquette. I was more interested in their ability to _fight_... which might explain why I was defeating you." Reminder sent, he ceded control before Potter could shove him aside.

"Ah, Harry, welcome back," said Dumbledore, relaxing slightly in his seat. "Now, here is our plan: if Lucius and Narcissa are not home to receive me, I daresay I shall stay in the parlor until they return. You, however, are young, and the young are not known for being models of good behavior. If you should happen to leave the carriage, follow me invisibly, wander through the house, trip over the loose floorboard in the library, and reveal the hidden compartment under the desk... why, I'm sure that would be no fault of mine."

"Yes, sir," Potter said. "Erm. I still think this is a bad idea -- I know I'm the only one who can feel the Horcruxes, but you shouldn't let me go anywhere alone, especially not with a wand. I can't always keep him pushed down." _And it's stupid to worry about keeping up appearances around a Death Eater._

"Your concern does you credit," said Dumbledore, "but unfortunately, Lucius has enough influence in our world that it is quite impossible to get a warrant to search his house. Even if I did, by chance, manage to acquire legal permission, he would have more than enough warning to shift all his secrets elsewhere. And we only have one Invisibility Cloak."

_The old man is senile_, Tom informed Potter. _You're right -- we all know Lucius was my creature, so there's no sense treating him with respect. If you insist on destroying my diary, the simplest method would be to burn the entire mansion to the ground with Fiendfyre._

For a handful of seconds, the image of flames wreathed through Potter's thoughts, tinged with longing and a cold rage. Then Potter locked up his emotions and shoved his wand into his pocket.

_Mr. Malfoy might not be completely evil anymore, though_, said Potter, _even if he's still corrupt, and I won't act like you. He has house elves and he used to have human servants. A fire might kill them, especially if we set wards up to make sure nobody carried the diary out to safety._

Tom laughed, startling Dumbledore. "Yes, my boy?" the old man said, raising his eyebrow. His hand shifted a fraction of an inch closer to his wand.

"I am not, never was, and never will be 'your boy.' I doubt Potter will be either -- he refuses to act on his thoughts, but his mind follows the same paths--"

He choked, breathless, and Potter hurled him back into the limbo of their dreamscape, away from control of the body.

"He's lying, sir," said Potter. "I'm sorry."

But deep in the hidden corners of his mind, flames leapt for a moment, and Tom laughed.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Dumbledore didn't destroy the diary. One week later, Potter could still feel it, and Tom could feel him feeling it, though he couldn't sense any of his Horcruxes directly.

"I wonder why that is?" he mused, building another castle. This time he sorted the memories first, leaving Potter's in a shapeless pile by his side.

"Because I have a whole soul -- yours is shriveled and torn up," Potter said, scuffing up behind him. "I can feel you, too. I bet you ripped up that part of yourself when you made your first Horcrux, because otherwise you'd never have made another. They're slimy, and frozen, and they itch and burn like they're going to eat right through me."

An interesting theory. "You picked the wrong question to answer," he told Potter. "The important point is that Dumbledore hasn't done anything with my diary." And also that Potter was learning to pick through Tom's surface thoughts -- that was advanced, delicate Legilimency, something far beyond a normal first or second year student.

Potter had never been one of the sheep-like masses, no matter what he'd thought in his ignorance, but it seemed he wasn't hiding from himself anymore.

"My friends are not sheep!"

"Granger and Weasley?" Tom considered for a moment. The Mudblood did show admirable intelligence and drive, and the Weasley boy, lazy though he was, had flashes of hidden potential. They hadn't found the nerve to visit Potter before the end of term, but if they confronted him in September... that might be interesting. "Perhaps those two are exceptions. But I notice you didn't defend anyone else. Admit it: all that most people do is mill around, bleat in ignorant fear and anger, and get in your way."

Potter scowled. "No! I didn't mean-- that's not-- stop twisting what I say! Maybe a lot of people don't pay attention or try to do anything, but that doesn't mean they're not important. They're still people, and you can't treat people like _things_."

"Ah. Let me see if I understand," began Tom, holding a memory shard in his hands. "Suppose I decided to do something -- say, to sneak out of a common room after curfew -- and I encountered a person who, though useless and annoying, generally tried to do the right thing. If that person tried to stop me from breaking the rules, I'd have to take a minute to explain my reasons or bring him along, yes? Because he's a person, not an obstacle, I couldn't hex him and leave him lying on the floor like a piece of rubbish, simply for my own convenience. Am I getting this right?"

"Hermione did that, not me!" said Potter, and then clamped his lips shut, flushing scarlet.

"You see? You talk about friendship and trust, but power and self-interest are the truth underneath those lies. Pretty words are only a way to get people to do what you want -- and not a very effective one, since you have to obey your so-called friends in turn."

Potter clenched his hands, trembling -- Tom braced for another attack -- and then he shook his head once, violently. "You're wrong. Maybe that's what friendship and trust look like to you, but that's just because you don't have enough of a soul to feel anything anymore. I mess up a lot, but that doesn't mean I don't care about my friends. Ron and Hermione and I help each other because we _want_ to, not because we _have_ to. If you can't understand that, I'm sorry for you, because that's about the most miserable thing I can imagine."

He faded away, rising back to consciousness, leaving Tom alone on the plain of cold, broken memories.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I appreciate all comments, but I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer**: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note**: I began writing this story in 2004 and have since revised it to take information from HBP and DH into account. I make no guarantees of strict canon compliance, though, since I'm working off a slightly different interpretation of Tom Riddle's character from the one I tend to see in other people's work.

**Summary**: What if the newly-disembodied Voldemort had noticed his link to Harry? A dark AU.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Strange Likenesses: Chapter 6  
**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

At the beginning of August, Harry got a new room.

Dumbledore swept into the infirmary one morning carrying a bowl of porridge and a glass of pumpkin juice, and wearing a brilliant smile. "Harry, my boy, you've languished in here long enough," he said. "We can maintain wards on other rooms just as easily, and I am sure you will be pleased to regain some privacy."

Harry let a lump of porridge glop slowly from his spoon back into the bowl. "Okay," he said. "Thanks."

"Consider it a slightly belated birthday gift," said Dumbledore, neatly tucking his robes around his ankles as he sat beside Harry's bed. "I only wish I could do more for you."

"It's all right. I think I'm getting used to him," said Harry, stirring the porridge a bit more.

"I am so sorry, Harry."

Dumbledore's cheerful tone had dropped away. Harry stared at his breakfast, not wanting to see Dumbledore looking guilty or pained. It wasn't anybody's fault - well, it was obviously Voldemort's fault, and whoever had hypnotized Quirrell - but Voldemort would have woken sooner or later, whether Dumbledore had used the mirror as a trap or not. Harry was tired of the headmaster trying to take blame for everything.

"You didn't make him do any of this," Harry said. He stood the spoon upright in the porridge and watched it slowly tip sideways and slide across the bowl. "It's all right. Nobody's died so far."

"Whether I am to blame or not, I'm still sorry," said Dumbledore. "Voldemort's fall from grace and rise to power were the third great failure of my life. I doubt I could have changed his mind, but I lived through Grindelwald's war, many years earlier. I knew Gellert Grindelwald in his youth and I saw the flaws that led him astray. I should have recognized the signs in Tom Riddle and acted sooner."

_He knew Grindelwald? Personally?_ Voldemort felt and sounded genuinely startled. _Strange. Though I suppose a prior friendship might explain why he delayed so long before challenging Grindelwald to their final duel. Loyalty is such a limitation._

_Some limitations are there for a reason,_ Harry thought back. _Just because you can do horrible things doesn't mean you ought to._

Voldemort laughed. _Haven't we already talked about 'should' and 'ought'?_

Harry thought he ought to be getting angry. He would have been angry, before, if anyone had treated him like Voldemort did. But he couldn't seem to call up anything more than weary annoyance, as if Voldemort were an old friend or relative too familiar to actually hate.

Harry thought that ought to scare him a lot more than it did.

_Okay. Try this - just because you can do horrible things doesn't mean they make sense in the long run. Look where you ended up. If you hadn't tried to do Grindelwald one better, you wouldn't be stuck in my head with your soul all cut up and rotten._

In the back of his mind, Voldemort went silent, but Harry knew better than to take that for agreement or surrender. He returned his attention to Dumbledore. "Sorry, sir. He can be distracting."

"Voices in one's head often are," Dumbledore agreed. "Now, as it seems you have no interest in breakfast, let me show you to your new home away from home."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Harry's new room was more like a flat: a bedroom twice the size of Dudley's room, a private bathroom with a tub nearly big enough to swim in, a little room with a desk and a bookcase for studying, and a front room with a fireplace, a sofa, and several armchairs scattered about. The paintings were mostly landscapes, but the one on the door was a stern, elderly witch who wouldn't let anybody in or out without a whispered password and an authorized fingerprint on the bottom left corner of her frame.

A nicer prison, then. That was all right. Voldemort needed to be locked up.

"Minerva, Severus, and I are working out how to deal with your lessons in September," Dumbledore said as Harry finished looking around and returned to the front room. "For obvious reasons, it would be unwise for you to attend classes with the other second years, but we don't want to make this harder on you than absolutely necessary."

Harry shrugged. "I probably know the curriculum anyway," he said.

_Or rather, _I_ know it, and you have no compunctions about profiting from my work,_ said Voldemort, sounding both annoyed and amused. _I should build a wall across your mind, if only to see you fumble and fail at infant-level magic._

_That won't work anymore, _Harry told him sourly. He'd broken their memories far too thoroughly, buying time to tell Dumbledore about the Horcruxes. _But go ahead and try separating my memories from yours_._ I don't _want_ to know half the things you know._

He just wanted his life back. Except he'd never really had his life, had he? He'd only ever been borrowing it.

"I believe Severus and I should begin teaching you Occlumency," Dumbledore said abruptly, breaking into Harry's thoughts, "if only to give you practice holding two trains of thought at once. It will make your life simpler if you are not constantly distracted by conversation with Voldemort."

Occlumency being... oh, right, the defensive technique to counter Legilimency. Both of which Harry apparently knew, now that he thought of it - and had been using without noticing. He couldn't have blocked Voldemort without them. He didn't think Dumbledore would take it well if he said he could probably read minds, though.

Dumbledore cleared his throat and Harry realized he'd been ignoring the outside world again. He made a noncommittal noise that Dumbledore seemed to take as agreement.

"Professor Quirrell is working with Severus to hunt down any clues about the person who put him under Imperius," Dumbledore continued. "With a bit of luck, that mystery will soon be resolved, and the guilty party sent to Azkaban. Meanwhile, I will be leaving tomorrow morning to retrieve the final Horcrux. When I have destroyed the ring, we can begin to consider our options for mitigating your situation."

_So he is planning to make use of the diary,_ Voldemort said.

Harry ignored him. Giving Voldemort a body of his own was madness. Dumbledore must have some other plan in mind. "Good luck, sir," he said to Dumbledore. "Don't forget the ring has a death curse. It shouldn't go off if you only handle the stone or the outside of the band, but if you slip and even touch the inner band - it would be ugly. I'd use pliers if I were you."

"Or a levitation spell, perhaps?" suggested Dumbledore, his eyes recovering some of their amused twinkle. "I thank you for your concern, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow evening."

He unlocked the door and walked out, closing Harry in alone with only Voldemort for company.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Professor McGonagall came to eat dinner with him the next day - "since the Headmaster seems to have been slightly delayed," as she said - and she and Harry ate in awkward silence. Finally she pushed her plate aside with a resigned sigh.

"I haven't the slightest idea what might be keeping Albus, but we might as well make use of the time. I brought my final exams for first through seventh years, and I would like to run you through the exercises to see where you stand in Transfiguration. Over the next weeks, we'll do the same with your other subjects."

Harry nodded his agreement and waited for Professor McGonagall to remove the charms that would, among other traps and failsafes, set his wand on fire should he try to use it without permission. When she handed it back, he flicked it, once, to get the feel of it back in his wrist. There were no sparks, of course - that sort of thing was a symptom of uncontrolled magic - but he felt a warm hum as the phoenix feather inside the wood responded to his power.

_I wonder what would have happened if your wand weren't a brother to mine,_ Voldemort whispered. _Would you still have been able to use it, or would my presence have interfered with the resonances?_

_You were always here,_ Harry told him. _Any wand I could use would have to be compatible with you._ Aloud, he said to Professor McGonagall, "What should I do first?"

Voldemort's amusement curled through Harry's mind, poisonous and cold, while Harry breezed through spell after question Professor McGonagall asked about Transfiguration theory seemed as though he'd known the answer forever. Every change she asked him to make came easily. Harry felt like he was sleepwalking, as if his hands and mouth were acting on their own.

He wasn't good at magic. Nothing had ever come easily to him except flying - but this was nothing like flying. Flying made Harry feel alive. Flying made his breath come fast and his blood rush, and every last bit of it was _his_.

This new knowledge and skill belonged to Voldemort. He wasn't controlling Harry right now, but he might as well have been. The wrist motions were his, copied into Harry's body. The words were his, sitting strange and sour in Harry's mouth. Even the magic was his, or at least the patterns into which it flowed.

And yet it wasn't borrowed skill. If Dumbledore found a way to rip Voldemort out of Harry's mind tomorrow, Harry would still remember everything.

So it was stolen power. A poisoned gift from the man who killed his parents. Who killed his own father. Who killed, and killed, and killed, and _laughed_ while he worked, as if his slightest whim meant more than all the dreams of all the other people in the world, forever.

Harry wanted to be sick.

Finally, Professor McGonagall sat back in her chair with a slightly perplexed expression. "You just finished several NEWT level exercises," she said. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised - Voldemort was an extremely skilled and powerful wizard, abhorrent goals notwithstanding - but I do wonder if we have anything left to teach you."

Harry shrugged. "He can't have been perfect at everything. Besides, Dumbledore will probably want to know how far the memory sharing goes." He looked down at his wand, then reluctantly slid it across the empty table toward Professor McGonagall. She reapplied the warning and protection charms and handed it back.

"Would you like to come with me to the Headmaster's office?" Professor McGonagall asked abruptly, as she gathered her papers. "It's not good for you to be caged day in and day out, and you have as much stake in this Horcrux hunt as he does."

Surprised, Harry nodded.

Professor McGonagall led him through the corridors and up a flight of stairs, keeping a firm grip on Harry's wrist. The castle was strangely silent around them - all the animated figures in the paintings seemed to be elsewhere, and the suits of armor were absent from their niches. Perhaps they were having a party while the students were gone. Then again, Professor McGonagall was frowning up at the empty frames.

"Is something wrong?" Harry asked.

Professor McGonagall's fingers tightened. "Perhaps. Hopefully Albus will be able to explain." She stopped in front of a griffin statue and whispered a password into its marble ear. Harry covered his ears and looked away while she spoke, turning back when the statue stepped aside with a heavy tread and revealed a narrow, twisting flight of stairs. "Step on; they'll carry you up," Professor McGonagall said, gesturing Harry to go first.

At the top of the stairs, she drew a small key from her sleeve and unlocked the door. There was an immediate uproar from the dozens of portraits hung on the walls, and the professor stepped in front of Harry to shield him from whatever had upset the paintings. "Silence!" she ordered. "One at a time!"

The portraits began to hush each other, and a dour, black-haired man whose frame faced the doorway cleared his throat with a meaningful cough. "Minerva McGonagall, we regret to inform you that Albus Dumbledore has passed away," the dour portrait said. "You are now the interim headmistress of Hogwarts, until the Board of Directors shall make a more permanent appointment. Also, Madam Pomfrey requests that all staff present in the castle convene in the hospital wing for an emergency meeting."

Professor McGonagall's hand dropped to her side.

Harry ducked between her and the doorframe, sure he had misheard something. This must be a bad joke. Dumbledore was simply waiting to stand up and announce that he had recovered the ring. He couldn't really be dead.

But Harry saw no sign of the headmaster in the jumbled office. Just books and scrolls and a dirty teacup on the desk.

The portraits frowned down from the walls, and the dour man cleared his throat again. "The boy should be returned to his rooms," he said.

Professor McGonagall stirred to life again. "No. Whatever has- whatever happened to Albus, it was most likely connected to Harry. He has a right to know the details." She glanced into a corner of the office, where a large bird with glowing red-gold feathers huddled on a perch. "Fawkes, would you care to accompany us?" she asked.

The bird lifted its head and peered sadly across the office. Then it launched itself into the air, its wings hardly seeming to beat before it landed on Harry's shoulder. It trilled softly, before turning to rub its beak against Harry's hair.

The warm weight, the song, and the touch, seemed to bring the portrait's words home.

Dumbledore was dead. He had gone to fetch the final Horcrux, and he had died doing it. Now who would figure out how to remove Voldemort from Harry's mind? Now who would protect the school from the person who had cast Imperius on Professor Quirrell?

In the back of Harry's mind, Voldemort was laughing. _Game over, old man. I win._

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I appreciate all comments, but I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer**: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note**: I began writing this story in 2004 and have since revised it to take information from HBP and DH into account. I make no guarantees of strict canon compliance, though, since I'm working off a slightly different interpretation of Tom Riddle's character from the one I tend to see in other people's work.

**Summary**: What if the newly-disembodied Voldemort had noticed his link to Harry? A dark AU.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Strange Likenesses: Chapter 7**  
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

McGonagall seemed dazed as she led Potter to the hospital wing, her face blank and her brisk gait gone slow and uneven. The rest of the staff were waiting in the infirmary's main room: a flock of sheep and one draggled crow huddled beside the narrow bed that held Dumbledore's withered corpse. Tom noted the result of his curse with interest - he hadn't expected the effect to continue once the heart and brain were destroyed, but the old man's ankles seemed as blasted as his hands and face.

It hadn't been accidental. Dumbledore was wearing the ring.

_Suicide?_ Tom wondered to Potter. _What good did he think his death would bring to you or his cause? All his absence does is give me new opportunities._ And such opportunities! The old man had always played things close to his vest. Tom would bet the remnants of his life that whatever Dumbledore's current plans had been, no one remaining could piece them together. Which meant confusion and dissent. He could work with that.

_Dumbledore wouldn't kill himself,_ Potter said, briefly shocked out of the numb trance in which he'd been walking. _And nobody will help you just because he's... just because..._

Tom directed their gaze back to Dumbledore's right hand, the ring firmly seated on one finger. _Maybe not. Either way, I doubt someone else put that on for him._

Potter made no reply, just reached up to stroke the phoenix perched on his shoulder. McGonagall pressed down briefly on his other shoulder before stepping toward her colleagues.

"What killed him?" she asked.

Snape indicated the ring with one pale finger. "Voldemort laid a death curse on his final Horcrux. The Headmaster was able to Apparate to a point just outside the castle wards, but without prior warning, I didn't have the necessary supplies on hand to slow or halt the curse."

The man sounded genuinely disturbed by the turn of events, lending support to Tom's suspicion that Snape had turned traitor instead of simply weaseling a comfortable hiding place out of Dumbledore's bad judgment. On the other hand, Snape could be acting and biding his time. Legilimency was no use, since Snape was a damnably skilled Occlumens and Potter would never agree to riffle through his thoughts in any case.

Time would tell. If Snape took advantage of Dumbledore's death to contact Tom, that would be a point in his favor, though not enough to remove all suspicion. If he didn't try anything, he was either a traitor or a useless coward, and Tom could plan a suitable punishment.

The phoenix trilled on Potter's shoulder, drawing attention to him. Several of the professors frowned.

"Minerva, the poor boy doesn't need to be here!" Pomfrey exclaimed, bustling over and seizing Potter's hand. "Sit down, Harry. I'm so sorry you saw this, but I promise we'll keep you safe."

Potter sank onto another narrow hospital bed, still staring at Dumbledore's corpse. "You should take the ring off before you destroy it," he said. The phoenix trilled again and nestled closer to his face, its red-gold feathers tangling in his hair.

Pomfrey looked taken aback. "What?"

"You need to burn the ring with Fiendfyre," Potter said tonelessly. "Unless he... did Professor Dumbledore want to be cremated?"

Snape and McGonagall exchanged a look over Potter's head, which Tom only caught from the corner of Potter's eyes and thus couldn't read. "His brother would know," Snape said after a moment, "but it might be safer to cremate him in any case, as we have no idea what other spells might be on the ring. The death curse is spent, but who knows what brought him to touch a Horcrux when he knew the risks?"

Tom stifled a flash of irritation. Nobody had the right to use his Horcruxes as vehicles for their own experiments! But it was a moot point now. Any hypothetical spells would soon be destroyed along with yet another fragment of his soul, leaving him tied to life only through Potter and the diary.

He hated being in the power of others.

"Very well. Severus, Quirinus, ask the Room of Requirement for a fireproof chamber and collect any- collect his ashes afterwards," McGonagall said, her voice wavering slightly. "Poppy, take Harry to his rooms. The rest of us will move to my office and decide how to break the news and who to hire as my replacement for the Transfiguration position. Join us as you're able."

Pomfrey pulled Potter to his feet and led him away. As they left the infirmary, Tom couldn't resist one last jab at the man who'd thwarted him for so long.

_The old fool finally did me one better,_ he remarked to Potter. _I was defeated by a hysterical woman and a squalling infant, but at least a prophecy and some volition were involved. He was done in by jewelry. Hardly the stuff of legends!_

Potter twitched.

Tom settled back in the depths of their shared mind, considering how to take advantage of this new situation.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Annoyingly, they were abandoned in the prison suite for the next two days. House elves popped in and out to replace meal trays and the phoenix adopted one of the armchairs as its new roost, but no human so much as knocked on the entrance.

_They could easily leave us trapped for the next century,_ Tom pointed out as Potter paced around the bedroom.

"Professor McGonagall wouldn't do that," Potter said irritably. "Madam Pomfrey wouldn't either. They're just busy."

_Running about like panicked children, wondering what Dumbledore's intentions might have been,_ Tom said. _Careless of him to leave such confusion in his wake._

Potter sent a wave of irritation through the currents of their mind. "You're no better - you never told anyone about your Horcruxes. If you'd been less paranoid you wouldn't have needed to possess me. We wouldn't be stuck like this."

Tom borrowed Potter's mouth and laughed aloud. "Would you trust Lucius Malfoy or Severus Snape with the secret of eternal life? Would you trust Bellatrix Lestrange? Peter Pettigrew? I chose my Death Eaters for other reasons."

Potter rummaged through their jumbled memories, pulling up impressions of Bellatrix and Pettigrew, and winced in disgust. "What reason could anyone have for choosing people like that? She's completely mental, and he's..." Potter trailed off, diving back into the memories. "He betrayed my parents! They were his best friends! What kind of person does that?"

_A useful one,_ Tom said, ducking the blade of Potter's outrage. _As for Bellatrix, her devotion, while wearing, meant I never had to worry about her turning on me. She made a lovely guard dog provided I kept hold of her leash, and her lineage was helpful in convincing other purebloods to join my cause._

"All your followers were mental," Potter muttered, throwing himself backwards onto the bed. "They had to be - they listened to you. I don't understand you at all. You're as smart as Hermione, maybe even smarter, but you're so stupid too. What's the point of taking over the world? What's the point of killing people who never did anything to you? What's the point of living forever when it rips you up inside and makes you into even more of a monster than you started out? If you wanted people to respect you, why not be like Dumbledore instead?"

This time Potter ducked Tom's frozen rage, sliding around the edges of their shared mind.

_I am NOTHING like that old fraud,_ Tom spat. _I didn't need to trick my way into making people love me. I EARNED everything I had, until you took it all away._

"You can't earn things by murder," Potter snapped.

Tom seized Potter's throat and tongue for a moment. "Of course not. The deaths were only proof that I had won - by learning the spells my enemies were too foolish or squeamish to think of, and by having the strength of will to use them to shape the world to my liking. I worked for my power. Unlike you, who simply stole mine."

"You stole my _life,_" said Potter, his anger flaring to match Tom's. "You're nothing but a coward and a bully, and everything that went wrong for you is your own fault. I should find where Dumbledore hid your diary and get rid of you forever."

_That would require killing yourself,_ Tom pointed out, stomping down his reflexive flinch.

"We should both be dead already," Potter said. Then he clenched his teeth as if he hadn't meant to let that thought out into the air, and began thinking very determinedly of Quidditch strategies, ignoring all of Tom's attempts to continue the conversation.

The worst part about possessing a body without the ability to control said body was the utter helplessness if Potter chose to temporarily deny Tom's existence. He didn't even have the option of reading to pass the time. And Potter's arrogance - that he could, would, and did pretend that the man who'd shaped his entire petty life didn't matter to him at all - burned like acid.

Tom settled in to build another memory castle, waiting for Potter to grow bored and come looking for him again.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Finally the start of fall term rolled around. McGonagall and Snape - who had somehow maneuvered the Board of Governors into naming him Deputy Headmaster - decreed that it was too dangerous for Potter to eat with his erstwhile housemates. "Nonetheless, it would be cruel to keep you locked away," McGonagall added. "You'll sit at the professors' table for the Sorting and the meal. If you'd like, I can pass letters on to your friends, though they won't be allowed to visit you."

Potter went still for a long moment, bubbling frustration fighting to break free from the weight of his resignation. Then he sighed. "Thanks. When do you need them?"

"I'll take them when I fetch you tomorrow evening," McGonagall said, and locked them into the suite for the night.

Potter's final draft was short and to the point: _"I have a private suite now, to keep Voldemort away from people. I don't know if I'll be allowed to attend classes. I'm sorry I can't see you, but maybe I'll get to keep Hedwig with me and we can write to each other._

_Say hello to Hagrid for me, will you? I haven't seen him since Professor Dumbledore died, and I bet he's taking it hard._

_-Harry"_

"Clever," Tom said. "Perhaps too clever. You're also neglecting to consider the fingerprint lock on the door."

"Hermione will understand, and the portrait won't keep them out forever. The three of us got through the professors' traps to the Mirror of Erised, after all," Potter said. He batted aside Tom's reach for his lungs and mouth. "Don't use my voice tonight. It takes too long to explain that I can push you back, and the professors won't let us out if they think you might take control."

_If they have any sense they'll keep us imprisoned forever,_ Tom said. _Of course, if they had any sense they would have killed you already instead of occasionally trusting us with a wand. Morals make everyone foolish._

"I'm not arguing about that again," said Potter. "I mean it about staying back, too. I don't want people to see me with red eyes."

_Suit yourself,_ said Tom, and dropped back to watch the boy stew in nervous anticipation.

When McGonagall unlocked the portrait door, Potter nearly pitched himself headlong to the stone floor of the corridor in his haste to get out of the imprisoning rooms. Tom made no effort to stifle his laughter.

_Shut it. You hate being locked in as much as I do,_ Potter snapped. Then he handed the letter to McGonagall, folded but unsealed so she could check it for signs of evil plotting. "For Hermione and Ron," he said. "Er. People only know about the Mirror and the Stone, right? Professor Dumbledore kept Voldemort secret?"

"Inasmuch as that was possible, yes," McGonagall agreed, tucking the letter into a pocket on the far side of her robe. "You'll be seated between Professor Snape and our new Defense instructor, who is covering for Professor Quirrell while he investigates the attempted theft of the Philosopher's Stone. They will make certain nothing untoward occurs during the Sorting and the welcome banquet."

There was a moment of silence.

_Say something,_ Tom muttered.

Potter pushed a burst of irritation toward him and attempted to look attentive. "Okay. Thanks," he said to McGonagall.

"The carriages won't arrive for several minutes," McGonagall said. "Take the time to introduce yourself. We also have a new Transfiguration instructor, who may be of personal interest to you."

She opened the door of a small room adjoining the Great Hall, revealing a milling, chattering muddle of professors in varicolored robes. Three men turned at the sound of squeaking hinges: Snape, drawn up like a disdainful bird of prey; a shabby, tired-looking stranger; and Alastor Moody, grown old and battered, with a wildly spinning false eye, but still instantly recognizable as Tom's mad schoolmate.

"Harry, meet Remus Lupin and Alastor Moody," said McGonagall. "Gentlemen, may I introduce Harry Potter." She grimaced and continued. "I should also introduce the wretch currently sharing his body: Tom Riddle, whom you might also know-"

"-as Voldemort, because he's a bloody narcissist with a taste for melodramatic anagrams," Alastor finished, lumbering forward to clap a hand on Potter's shoulder. "I don't know how in blazes he got himself into your head, Potter, but we won't let him pull you down. One way or another, I'll get him out and give him everything he deserves. Believe me, I have a very long list of his crimes."

He grinned. The expression had only grown more unsettling with age.

Potter smiled tentatively back, as a faint glow of hope pushed against the smothering resignation he'd been carrying since Dumbledore's death. "Do you really think you can fix me? Dumbledore didn't say anything, but I think he wanted to use Voldemort's-"

Tom grabbed control of his voice before Potter could tell anyone of the diary's continued survival.

"-knowledge of my own organization to purge any remaining Death Eaters from the Ministry and other important positions, and to gain insight on underground magical networks around the world," he finished. "It would be rather counterproductive to kill me out of hand, not to mention fatal to Potter."

He met Alastor's gaze, knowing how disconcerting his eyes must look in Potter's face, and smiled.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I appreciate all comments, but I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_.

**Further Note:** So, about Moody. From what I can tell, McGonagall and Riddle were at Hogwarts together - she was either one or two years ahead of him, depending on whether she was the oldest or youngest student in her year, since her birthday would seem to be around the logical class cutoff point. We have no similar information on Moody, just that he attended Hogwarts sometime after Dumbledore and before Molly and Arthur Weasley. We also have no information on Moody's House.

There is, therefore, no reason _not_ to suppose that he was a Slytherin whose time at Hogwarts at least partially overlapped Riddle's. And frankly, the idea of those two as classmates amuses me too much not to use, which is all the justification I need. +wry+


End file.
